Lord of the Rings and The Sword of Shannara
The first volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, was published in 1954. Twenty three years later, in 1977, Terry Brooks published his novel The Sword of Shannara. Almost immediately Brooks' novel was subject to great criticism from other authors, including Orson Scott Card of Enders Game, for being little more than an uninspired, insulting rip off of Tolkien.Card, Orson Scott (1999). "Uncle Orson's Writing Class: On Plagiarism, Borrowing, Resemblance, and Influence". Retrieved 2018-04-24. This undeniable influence by Brooks has also been defended due to the positive effects of the publishing of his novel on the fantasy novel community as a whole. This influence, or rip off, can be better described as a remix. __FORCETOC__ The two novels The Lord of the Rings was written by English writer J. R. R. Tolkien between 1937 and 1949. Tolkien's service during WWI was an influence on the overall theme of his novel, which portrays industrialism and war as the overall antagonist. Terry Brooks novel, The Sword of Shannara, was written between 1967 and 1974 while Brooks attended law school. The similar plot of The Sword of Shannara focuses less on industrialisation, but still features war as a major plot point. Both books feature as the main protagonist a mundane character simply trying to do the right thing, instead of adhering to the overly capable hero trope. Remix analysis It is undeniable that The Sword of Shannara ''shares a great number of similarities with ''The Lord of the Rings.''Wikipedia Contributors. "The Sword of Shannara." ''Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 16 Mar. 2018. Web. 27 Apr. 2018. Brooks used the same fantasy races of Elves and Dwarves as well as the wizard and the use of magic in general. These similarities are evidenced in the comparison pictures in the gallery below, showing images from The Lord of the Rings on the left with similar illustrations of The Sword of Shannara on the right. The borrowing doesn't stop there, though. Brooks even uses a similar plot of an unassuming protagonist thrust into danger and adventure to defeat a great evil with the use of an artifact and the aid of a diverse band of both heroic and mundane companions under the tutelage of a wise and secretive wizard. The defense of this reuse can be best described by the concept of remix. Remix can be described as "work that builds upon or repurposes already existing material". Edwards, Dustin. "Framing Remix Rhetorically: Toward a typology of Transformative Work." Re:Mix, edited by The University of North Florida, Fountainhead Press, 2017, p. xix. The idea of remix can also be thought of as simply influence, given that all new work is simply a recasting of prior work. Dustin Edwards breaks remix down into four types: assemblage, reappropriation, redistribution, and genre play. Assemblage in particular is exemplified by Brooks in The sword of Shannara. ''With these two concepts, influence and assemblage, it is easier to view what Brooks did not as a simple uninspired copying, but as a gathering and redeploying of a work that was such a huge influence on him. Defense of the remix If Brooks were to be turned off from writing following the backlash toward his first novel, or worse, were legal action to be taken against him for plagiarism and the novel never even published, then one of the best selling fantasy novels of all time would enjoy a lesser success with a tarnished reputation, and the dozens of books that followed it in the ''Shannara series would not exist. Worse still, the rejuvenation of the fantasy novel market following the publication of The Sword of Shannara would have never happened. The face of fantasy literature today would be very different. If Brooks remix can be defended in this way, and even celebrated, then remix in general can be defended. One can imagine a world without the sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., as his works were just assemblages of famous quotes and bible passages. Gallery Fellowship.jpg|Fellowship of the Ring Seekers of the sword.jpg|Sword Seekers (Shannara) Gandalf.jpg|Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings) Allanon druid of shannara by myrddinderwydd.jpg|Allanon (The Sword of Shannara) References